In an insertion machine for mass mailing, there is a gathering section where enclosure material is gathered before it is inserted into an envelope. This gathering section is sometimes referred to as a chassis subsystem, which includes a gathering transport with pusher fingers rigidly attached to a conveyor belt and a plurality of enclosure feeders mounted above the chassis. If the enclosure material contains many documents, these documents must be separately fed from different enclosure feeders. After all the released documents are gathered, they are put into a stack to be inserted into an envelope in an insertion station. Envelopes are separately fed to the insertion station, one at a time, and each envelope is placed on a platform with the front face of the envelope facing down and its flap flipped back all the way. At the same time, mechanical fingers or a vacuum suction device is used to keep the envelope on the platform while the throat of the envelope is pulled upward to spread open the envelope. The stack of enclosure material is than automatically inserted into the opened envelope.
Before the envelope is spread open, a number of suction cups or other lifting devices must be properly positioned at the throat section of the envelope. The position of suction cups, relative to each other, must be adjusted in accordance with the size and the type of the envelope. In an open structured insertion machine, operators are able to observe the opening device as it functions and make manual adjustments at the location of the opening mechanism to improve the performance. But for certain insertion machines, the insertion process is behind doors and/or out of visual range such that routine manual adjustments become very difficult and impractical.
It is advantageous to provide a method and device for adjusting the envelope opening device based on the type of envelope and without human intervention.